What can a doctor do with her patients' stories? How can the telling of and listening to stories create "clearings" for patients and doctors - and anyone - to aid in healing work?

Rita Charon is founder and Executive Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She completed her MD at Harvard in 1978 and her PhD in English at Columbia in 1999. Her research focuses on doctor-patient relationships, narrative skill in medicine and reflective practice. She has received a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency, a Guggenheim Fellowship and research funding from the NIH, the NEH and several private foundations.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.